Ending Myopia

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CS
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Ending Myopia

Post by CS »

I've had contacts for nearly all my adult life - starting in college when my life was consumed with close up studying of books. Turns out that studying was related to my distance vision degenerating. And I could have fixed that easily. Instead, I've risked my eyesight and paid way, way too much money to do so. And have the ugly veins in my eyeballs to prove it.

But I'm in the process of fixing it now. It will cost me a few years of glasses (at Zenni, that turns out to be ~$100 or less for 10 pairs of glasses!) but will save me $400 a year of contact and doctor costs for the rest of my life! Yes!

And I will have my vision back! Holy cow! Freedom.

Someone on the forum a while back (I think it was TopHatFox in December 2017) got me looking into this and I just wanted to share this with people who might have missed it. The resource I'm going with is Jake Steiner at End Myopia. You can find his videos on YouTube. He has a seven-day email thing that you sign up for and it walks you through how to measure your myopia and what the numbers mean. Perfect for those of us who want to know 'the how' and not just the instructions on 'the do'. (Start here: https://endmyopia.org/end-myopia-home/, Email guide sign up at the bottom: https://endmyopia.org/consultations/)

Then, you can join a Le Meow community (you have to pass the quiz first) to discuss your progress and see other people's progress.

Jake is a former finance guy now semi-retired to family life doing outdoor stuff in SEA and helping people get away from the ridiculous optometry $ treadmill. His videos are a bit ranty and entertaining. Random video I selected so you know who I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQXqHXtpDp4

And yes, it's all FREE. FREEEEEEE The magic word for ERErs. :D This is not a sales pitch. Nope. I'm just so happy, I wanted to share.
(I mean you can pay for additional help if you really want some hand-holding, but Jake himself makes it clear you can do it all for zero dollars if you just put some time into learning from the site.)

I've been actively doing this for two months and my vision has gone from L -2.0/R -3.0 to L -1.5/R -2.3. At the expected rate of progress, I'll have 20/20 vision by Jan 2021. 8-) 8-) 8-) (Road trips, btw, are fantastic for lots of active focus and improving the vision. Thanks, Chicago meetup!)

Stahlmann
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by Stahlmann »

Too good to be true :( and broscience unfortunately.

CS
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by CS »

@Stahmann
As a scientist, I have to say you are not right. I've already had one optometrist help me improve my vision, and I'll tell you, he is a rare one. The rest are more interested in lining their pockets.

Minus lenses are just a money making vehicle for a lot of people. Presbyopia is not an issue until later in life (and not even then a for sure thing), so there is no reason that anyone should have to pay $1000 a year for contacts (that is what they are pushing these days for dailies). Follow the money.

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Chris
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by Chris »

I came to say what Stahlmann said.

But I've spent the last two hours reading/watching Jake's content. It's intriguing.

I'm at -9. Yeah, it's bad. At my last optometrist visit, he ended with, "look out for detached retinas!" I asked if there was anything I could do to reduce that risk, and he just said no, but to look out for the warning signs. Kind of a bummer.

Ok, so high myopia can lead to a detached retina. But what causes high myopia? An elongated eye shape. What causes that? And why does it worsen over time? It was never really explained in any of my visits to the optometrist over the years. It was just a given: your eyes are bad, and they'll get worse up to a point.

And how do we correct myopia? Here, sit in this chair and look through this gadget:

Doc: better one or two?
Me: two
Doc: and now, better one or two?
Me: two?
Doc: and now, better one or two?
Me: ...one?

Ok, great! Now that you've spent five seconds looking through the gadget, we have your prescription that will sit in front of your eyes for millions of seconds.

Never seemed that scientific to me.

So I'm willing to entertain non-invasive alternatives rooted in peer-reviewed studies, which is what Jake's site provides.

CS
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by CS »

Chris -

-9! That must be frustrating - and scary without glasses.

I'm glad to hear you open to this. Jake's site is good, isn't it? Peer review papers, as you said...

It's funny to encounter the instant "it's not possible" kind of the resistance is what Jacob faces every day about ERE. :)

The cost to give this a shot is pretty low: two pairs of glasses from Zenni, a tape measure, and a printout of an eye chart. The two pairs of glasses are new normals at slightly less than your current vision and differentials of about 1.5 diapter less for reading - to reduce the close-up eye strain. Both pairs of glasses can be had for less than $20, including shipping (I chose some $6.95 frames that look pretty good, with a different color for my reading glasses so I can easily tell them apart.) The tape measure is ~$4 from Amazon, or cheaper locally - free if you have it already. Eye charts are free for printing at Jake's site. That is ~$24 if you go the lazy, spendthrift way I did. :lol:

Get the tape measure first - it will tell you where you are diapter-wise, and where you need to start with the glasses. Make sure it is in centimeters.

I keep track of my results on an excel spreadsheet I made that calculates the diapters for me from the cm measurement. The email series will give you the formula.

If you find it all works for you, and I have no doubt it will, then you will have to buy more reduced glasses (pairs) as things go on, but then you won't feel like you're possibly throwing your money away on a 'test' anymore.

I find I get the best active focus practice while walking outside or driving - and the last improvement felt like a relaxation around my eyeballs that I've never felt before. It's like I've been squinting for the last twenty years and didn't realize it until the sensation went away. It felt great. And my vision popped in on my new normal glasses so sharp and clear from the double vision stage I was at previously. This was at night, when vision tends to be worse in the dark (you know, like the places where they test your eyes??!)

I'm not normally a pusher of things - but this is so exciting to me, that I don't want others to miss out. Plus there are real dangers of retina detachment as you mentioned, etc at high myopia and/or blindness from contacts. Not to mention a $400 - $1200 annual contact lens habit gets in the way of FI.
Last edited by CS on Wed Sep 05, 2018 10:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

jacob
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by jacob »

Chris wrote:
Mon Sep 03, 2018 8:58 pm
Doc: better one or two?
Me: two
Doc: and now, better one or two?
Me: two?
Doc: and now, better one or two?
Me: ...one?
That's just a bracket search.

Me: Guess a number between 1 and 5?
You: 3
Me: Lower
You: 1
Me: Higher
You: 2
Me: You got it.

Then it's just a question of precision vs accuracy. I'm guessing human eye (focus) precision is fairly high whereas extreme accuracy is not crucial (since the eye can correct) which is why he only needs to measure once.

CS
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by CS »

@Jacob
The eye's ability to correct for things is how myopia gets so bad in the first place. They use that bracket test to test your vision in one situation (far), in the worse possible conditions (dark), and then most people go and use their eyeballs in the exact opposite situation (close-up screen time in a bright room). The doctors have corrected for perfect vision far away, and often over correcting so that the eyeball doesn't have to work *at all* to focus for distance, but then making it have to work twice as hard to see up close. Which changes its shape over time, making distance vision worse. Which the eye doctor corrects. Again.

And the cycle goes on.

trfie
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by trfie »

Please keep us updated with your experience and your diopter numbers.

I literally tried for many years to improve my vision. Have read a lot of books on it, bought courses for it, have done all kinds of eye exercises. Used to be a part of some message boards. Did not have any improvement. I know several other people who tried and did not have any improvement. But if this method you are doing works then I would definitely try it.

I agree that the optometrists/ophthalmologists do not seem to know much. That it could be completely random and there is nothing that caused it or could make it better, defies all logic.

It's pretty well established that the eyeball is too long in the myopic eye. So for a method to work, it should change the shape of the eyeball? There were some natural vision improvement methods that touted a change in the ciliary muscles, I think, but it seemed to have been debunked as being able to cause real improvement in vision.

SavingWithBabies
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by SavingWithBabies »

I'm willing to try -- I'm in roughly the -5 range on both eyes. I have a childhood teacher that talked about this but I never followed up on it.

I'm happy to see the recipe for lower power reading/computing glasses (says to knock off 1.5 from the prescription). I just scratched one of my pairs of Zenni glasses in a boating mishap so I'll order a replacement and a lower power pair. I was even recommended such a thing in the past by one optometrist but the most recent ones had no idea what I was talking about.

CS
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by CS »

I'll try to remember to post my results here. I've noticed so far that it is zig-zag of better/worse with a net trend of getting better. If I spend too much time reading holding the phone too close to my face, even with lower diopters, it gets worse, or simply doesn't improve. More than anything else, getting some outside time with active focus on the trees etc makes a difference. Hours spent driving makes for phenomenal improvements.

This is good for getting me away from the computer.

It is a long game. I'm not pushing it beyond the quarter diapter drops each time. Just enough to get a bit of blur to work on focusing.

Miss Lonelyhearts
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by Miss Lonelyhearts »

Did it work?

theanimal
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by theanimal »

Funny timing with the resurfacing of this thread. Earlier this week I was listening to Andrew Huberman's most recent podcast about using light to improve health. At one point he talked about a recent study that found that morning exposure of deep red light for three minutes, just once a week, can improve declining eyesight.

We are growing seedlings inside at the moment and I've taken lingered a little longer around the full spectrum/red grow lights when watering in the morning the past couple days.

I think this is the original study that Huberman was referring to.

slsdly
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Re: Ending Myopia

Post by slsdly »

I'm inclined to agree with Stalhmann however out of curiosity, I did sign up to see what this 7 day makeover involves.

I have a fairly weak prescription (measurements range from -0.5 to -1.25). Prior to the pandemic I only used them now and then (driving, occasionally at my desk). When the pandemic hit, I started spending much more time indoors at the computer. I found myself wearing them every day and it was getting hard to even read my computer screen without them. Definitely my vision was worse. But since I got out more and away from the screen, I am back to my prior to the pandemic self. So I can certainly believe our actions can make it worse (I'm just not sure if we can make it better beyond a temporary basis :lol:).

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